Now that football fans will be able to watch CBS broadcasts of NFL games on Time Warner Cable, what about sports fans on Dish Network?

The contract between the satellite network and ESPN’s parent company Disney expires at the end of this month. ESPN, already the most expensive cable network, wants to squeeze some more money from Dish. According to mediapost.com, Dish pays ESPN more than $5 per month for each subscriber. That’s up from $3.26 a month when the contract first went into effect in 2005.

TVPredictions.com says this could be “the mother of all fee fights,” especially because the two companies “have not been cordial to each other.” A blackout would affect more than 14 million homes looking forward to Monday Night Football, college game days and programs like Sports Center..

Dish sued ESPN for $150 million earlier this year claiming the sports broadcaster had promised it would give the satellite company the best deal available, or “most favored nation” status.

According to Hollywoodreporter.com, “Dish accused ESPN of allowing Comcast to remove packaging requirements that allowed ESPN Classic to be distributed beyond its most widely distributed tier; of allowing DirecTV, Verizon and Time Warner Cable to have lower subscription rates ... and allowing others a la carte rights on ESPNHD, ESPN Classic, ESPNU and ESPN2.

“Additionally, Dish brought a fourth breach-of-contract claim against ESPN for granting Time Warner Cable the ability to distribute its networks on the internet without imposing a subscription fee.”

The satcaster was eventually awarded less than $5 million by a jury.

Dish chairman Charlie Ergen, considered an industry maverick, apparently is willing to play hardball in the latest negotiations. Discussing the talks on a recent earnings call with reporters, he said: “We’ll work first and foremost to find a deal … that makes sense for our customers. If we get that deal, we’ll do it. If we don’t get that deal, we’ll part ways — simple as that.”

But Disney chairman Robert Iger may have an edge. According to businessweek.com, Iger’s bargaining position is stronger now that CBS and Time Warner settled their fee feud. And ESPN is a must-have network for programmers.

“Even grandmas watch a lot of sports,” Matthew Harrigan, an analyst at Wunderlich Securities, told Businessweek, “so it will be difficult for Dish. ESPN and Disney are in a great bargaining position.”